Apple retailers in Towson, Md., Voted 65-33 in favor of joining the International Union of Aerospace Engineers and Workers, the union said in a statement. The vote could not be confirmed immediately by the US National Labor Relations Council, which had to certify the result. An NLRB spokesman referred the first questions about the vote to the board’s regional office, which closed late Saturday. Apple declined to comment on Saturday, company spokesman Josh Lipton told the Associated Press by telephone.
Search for rights “we do not have at the moment”
The International Association of Aeronautical Engineers and Workers and Apple employees who wanted to join said they had sent a notice to Apple CEO Tim Cook last month that they were trying to form a union. The statement said that their motive was to seek “rights that we do not have at the moment”. He added that the workers were recently organized in the Organized Retail Workers Coalition, or CORE. “I applaud the courage shown by CORE members at the Apple Store in Towson to achieve this historic victory,” said Robert Martinez Jr., President of IAM International. in the statement. “They made a huge sacrifice for the thousands of Apple employees across the nation who had all eyes on this election.” Martinez called on Apple to respect the election results and to allow union workers to speed up efforts to secure a contract at Towson. It remained unclear what steps would follow the Towson vote. Labor experts say it is common for employers to delay the negotiation process in an effort to get momentum from union campaigns. IAM identifies itself as one of the largest and most diverse industrial unions in North America, representing approximately 600,000 active and retired members in the aerospace, defense, airline, rail, transportation, healthcare, and auto industries. other industries. The Apple Store union comes in the context of other national labor organizations – some of which have been rejected. Apple declined to comment on the union vote. (Ng Han Guan / Associated Press) Many trade union efforts have been led by young workers in their 20s and even in their teens. A team of Google engineers and other employees formed the Alphabet Workers’ Union last year, which represents about 800 Google employees and is run by five people under the age of 35.
